Irish rally into final

Edwards’ 2 TDs sink Aurora late in fourth quarter

BY RYAN AUTULLOBLADE SPORTS WRITER

Central Catholic player Keith Towbridge celebrates after the Irish defeat Aurora High School 20-13 during their Division II state semi-final game at Huron High School.THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISONEnlarge
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HURON — Seven years af­ter they cap­tured the Divi­sion II state ti­tle, the Cen­tral Cath­o­lic foot­ball team has the chance to re­live that glory.

The No. 4 Ir­ish ral­lied be­hind two fourth-quar­ter touch­downs Fri­day to dis­patch Aurora 20-13 at Huron’s Me­mo­rial Sta­dium to ad­vance to the 15th week of the sea­son for the sec­ond time in school his­tory.

Cen­tral Cath­o­lic, the state’s top-ranked team for most of the year, will face de­fend­ing state cham­pion Trot­wood-Madi­son, who de­feated New Al­bany, at 7 p.m. Fri­day at Massil­lon Paul Brown Tiger Sta­dium.

The Ir­ish, who av­er­aged 45 points in their first three play­off games, were search­ing for an­swers all night be­fore Divi­sion I pros­pects DeShone Kizer and Keith Tow­bridge con­nected on a 43-yard strike to the 5-yard line that led to the game-win­ning touch­down. Two plays later, with 7 min­utes, 54 sec­onds to go in the game, Amir Edwards plunged across the goal line from two yards out for the first of his two scores.

Cen­tral, which out­scored its first three play­off op­po­nents 137-28, found it­self dead­locked with the fifth-ranked Green­men at half­time 7-7.

Aurora struck first, when Bol­las beat Cen­tral’s edge blitz and found Zach Smierciak on an 11-yard screen pass, put­ting the Ir­ish in a hole for the first time this post­sea­son. Bol­las set up the score when he squirted through a seam along the edge for 54 yards to Cen­tral’s 10, push­ing the 6-foot-4 ju­nior over 1,000 yards on the year.

Cen­tral re­sponded on the en­su­ing drive, a 12-play, 67-yard se­ries that Paul Mozes capped with a two-yard run. The rest of the half and most of the third quar­ter pro­duced lit­tle of­fen­sive spark. Kizer was just 2-for-5 pass­ing, and Edwards strug­gled to get loose in the open field. He had 63 yards at the break and fin­ished with 99.

"They had a great de­fense," said Edwards, who en­tered the game with 1,501 yards rush­ing. "Their line­back­ers were mov­ing around real good. We just had to get a good push."

Aurora squan­dered a scor­ing op­por­tu­nity with less than a minute left in the sec­ond quar­ter, af­ter Zach Quinn coughed up the ball at Cen­tral’s 17. Two plays ear­lier it looked like the Green­men (12-2) would get a cheap score af­ter Edwards put the ball on the turf.

"The de­fense saved us many times to­night," Cen­tral coach Greg Demp­sey said. "They an­swered on a short field. They an­swered af­ter we punted into the wind. At times, things are click­ing and you’re scor­ing 50 [points]. At times you’re not. The other team’s pretty dang good."

Quinn, a Univer­sity of Toledo line­backer com­mit who en­tered the night with more than 1,000 rush­ing yards, is bat­tling an an­kle in­jury, and it showed. The head of a three-headed mon­ster in the back­field, he car­ried just nine times for 35 yards and fin­ished the game on the side­line.

Trail­ing 14-13, Aurora ad­vanced to its own 37, where on fourth-and-3 one of its line­men jumped. The of­fense stayed on the field and could not con­vert as Cen­tral’s Der­ich Wei­land blan­keted Jake Czer­win­ski on a side­line route. Two plays later, Edwards was in the end zone cel­e­brat­ing a 20-yard TD af­ter he car­ried three or four de­fend­ers in with him.

"He looked at me in the hud­dle be­fore the play," Demp­sey said. "He said, ’Give me the ball and I’ll score.’ He wasn’t ly­ing. He ran like a bronco there."

Aurora, mak­ing its sec­ond straight state semi­fi­nal ap­pear­ance, blocked the ex­tra point, keep­ing the score 20-13. Bol­las drove the Green­men to Cen­tral ter­ri­tory and left the fans sit­ting on the home side gasp­ing for breath af­ter his pass in the end zone on third down was nearly snared by run­ning back Jake McVay. After Tow­bridge wres­tled Bol­las to the ground mo­ments later, the Ir­ish side­line erupted.

All that stands be­tween Cen­tral Cath­o­lic and its dream sea­son is Trot­wood-Madi­son, which has won 10 in a row. Demp­sey said he will re­vert to the tem­plate he used in 2005 for di­rec­tion on how to pre­pare his team.

"I think you look back at the sched­ule and the hype they’re go­ing to deal with and try to pro­tect them as much as pos­si­ble," Demp­sey said. "You look back at things you thought you did real well and things you didn’t and wish you could do over."

Con­tact Ryan Au­tullo at:

rau­tullo@the­blade.com,

419-724-6160 or on

Twit­ter @Au­tul­loBlade.

SPT CENTRAL24p Toledo Central Catholic player Jon Perrin Jr., 50, celebrates after sacking Aurora High School quarterback George Bollas, 11, for a loss late in the fourth quarter during their Division II state semi-final game at Huron High School, Friday, November 23, 2012. The Blade/Andy MorrisonTHE BLADE/ANDY MORRISONEnlarge
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SPT CENTRAL24p Toledo Central Catholic player Derich Weiland, 24, tries to get past Aurora High School player Zach Smierciak, 14, during the first quarter of their Division II state semi-final game at Huron High School, Friday, November 23, 2012. The Blade/Andy MorrisonTHE BLADE/ANDY MORRISONEnlarge
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